Re-Logic's 2D sandbox hit Terraria is heading to 3DS and Wii U in Q1 2016, publisher 505 Games has announced.

Both versions will feature touchscreen controls with online and offline multiplayer. The Wii U version will support up to eight-player multiplayer with four-player split-screen available. The 3DS version, however, is capped at four players total.

Oft likened to a 2D Minecraft, Terraria originally launched on PC in 2011 before being ported to Xbox 360, PS3, Vita, iOS and Android in 2013. It then arrived on PS4 and Xbox One last November.

Version 1.1.0 adds the two new features for free. Tournaments let you compete online with scores of other players, while the in-built YouTube upload lets you save replays to the streaming video site and Miiverse simultaneously.

Support for another wave of paid-for DLC has also been added, although you'll need to purchase all of it separately.

Final Fantasy Explorers, Square Enix's action role-playing Final Fantasy spin-off for Nintendo 3DS, launches in North America and Europe in 2016.

That's 26th January in North America and 29th January in Europe, Square Enix said in a post on the Final Fantasy Facebook page. Final Fantasy Explorers launched in Japan in December 2014.

Explorers rekindles memories of fellow Final Fantasy spin-off Crystal Chronicles, with a dash of Monster Hunter. There's single-player, multiplayer for up to four players, and a tonne of quests to get stuck into.

Nintendo has posted an encouraging profit (8.3bn yen / £43m) for the months April, May and June. Last year it was in the red (-9.9bn yen / -£51m).

The good news is 3DS sales (1m for the quarter), Splatoon sales and amiibo sales. Splatoon has sold 1.62m units since its release at the end of May, helping the Wii U edge over the 10m sales milestone (10.01m specifically) after two-and-a-half years on sale. Considering Splatoon is Wii U exclusive, and it was on sale for two full months, that's a convincing result for the new IP. Then again, Mario Kart 8 is owned by 5.11 million people - more than half of the Wii U audience.

Amiibo sales weren't specified but referred to as "favourable" and, Nintendo promised, "we will continue to expand the lineup". And with an expanded lineup comes potential for plenty more defective models, which have become collector's items and sell for a fortune. Someone has dedicated a Tumblr page to them. "At the same time," the report added, "we aim to stimulate demand for amiibo from owners of the original Nintendo 3DS hardware systems by releasing the Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer accessory (for Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL and Nintendo 2DS), which will be launched simultaneously with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer [out in Europe 2nd October 2015]."

UPDATE: Square Enix Europe has shared a statement with Eurogamer regarding whether Dragon Quest 11 will find its way west. "We don't have a concrete plan at the moment," it reads. "However, we will consider it as we've done in the past for other Dragon Quest titles. We don't have further information to share at the moment."

ORIGINAL STORY: Dragon Quest 11 has been officially revealed by Square Enix, and it's coming to the PlayStation 4, the 3DS and Nintendo's forthcoming NX - becoming the first game confirmed for the new platform in the process.

The news came during a 90 minute conference held in Japan this morning where Square Enix detailed its plans for the long-running series ahead of its 30th anniversary next year, and where no less than 10 different games were shown. Headlining the lot was Dragon Quest 11, which sees the mainline series making a return to Sony's hardware for the first time since 2004's Dragon Quest 8.

Monster Hunter X (pronounced "Cross") now has a Japanese release date of 28th November along with a slew of new details and gameplay footage.

YouTuber Arekkz Gaming has captured 26 minutes of gameplay footage from a Japanese Capcom livestream and boiled it down to some of its more salient points in the more convenient nine-and-a-half minute video below:

Perhaps the biggest new addition in Monster Hunter X is four fighting styles that can be performed with all 14 weapons. The Aerial combat style lets you jump with any weapon, another focuses on countering, a "Guild" style preserves the classic control schemes we all know and love, and a fourth style is still under wraps but our YouTube presenter/translator Arekkz here thinks it has something to do with "super moves".

UPDATE: 17/07/2015 5.15pm: The Zelda anime series Kickstarter has been removed.

According to project lead Michael Patch, Nintendo never sent a cease and desist order, but it was rather backlash from other fans that convinced Patch to pull the plug.

[Editor's note: It appears that the Kickstarter campaign received a copyright strike after all. It came from Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP, a firm that's represented Nintendo in the past. This strike and Aeipathy's resignation post both went up on 15th July. We're currently investigating the order in which these went up.]

Sega has joined the rest of the internet by inserting snippets of actor Shia LaBeouf's bats*** insane motivational speech into another video. In this case, LaBeouf inspires Sonic to "just do it" and kick Doctor Eggman's butt at the conclusion of Sonic Generations.

For the uninitiated, back in May LaBeouf offered one of the most nonsensical motivational speeches in history to the mischievous hands of the internet. Naturally, mankind took LaBeouf's baffling screams and turned it into a popular meme. The weird part is that this isn't just another fan edited offering, but is rather part of Sega's official Sonic the Hedgehog YouTube channel.

"We've just released a new (fictional) DLC for Sonic Generations that adds actual cannibal Shia Lebouf into one of the game's final cutscenes," Sega claimed in its YouTube notes.

Satoru Iwata, who has passed away at the age of 55, was once seen unboxing a Wii U in a Nintendo video sporting white surgical gloves: the perfect accompaniment to a man who was gentle, self-deprecating, polite and precise. Behind the scenes, however, he was also a man who was never afraid to get his hands dirty. There's a wonderful story about him patrolling the shop floor at Nintendo's Kyoto headquarters prior to the Wii U's release, being shown the line-up for the console's impending launch in his role as the company's president. He paused on Balloon Trip Breeze, a mini-game within Nintendo Land which paid tribute to Balloon Fight, the 1984 game on which Iwata acted as programmer. Noticing something wasn't quite right with the feel of the characters as they flapped their way across the screen, he astonished everyone present as he set about fixing it - the head of the company rolling his sleeves up and getting stuck into the code.

Iwata's tenure, and the affection and respect in which he is held by developers and players alike, has been defined by this hands-on approach. Speaking to Shigesato Itoi, with whom he worked to create the SNES role-playing game Earthbound, Iwata once said he never wanted to be a mere bystander. He never was.

Born during the winter of 1959 in Sapporo, the largest city on Japan's northernmost island Hokkaido, Iwata took an early interest in electronic hardware and games, and was enduringly fascinated by the point at which the two meet. Having his first experience with games via Pong, Iwata bought an early Hewlett Packard pocket calculator and soon put it to novel use. "I think I was one of the original early adopters," he said during his 2005 GDC keynote. "But whereas some used them for mathematics, I used mine to create video games." His first game was an approximation of baseball, played out on the calculator's crude display through numbers alone. His school friends loved it.

]]>http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-13-tributes-pour-in-for-nintendos-satoru-iwata
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=1767676Mon, 13 Jul 2015 08:35:00 +0100Ubisoft and Disney team up for Gravity Falls game on 3DS

Ubisoft and Disney Interactive are collaborating on a 3DS game based on the animated TV series Gravity Falls.

Entitled Gravity Falls: Legend of the Gnome Gemulets, this platforming adventure adaptation uses the UbiArt engine used in such titles as Rayman Legends, Child of Light and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Much like Ubisoft's RPG South Park: The Stick of Truth, this Gravity Falls game looks rather faithful to its source material.

Legend of the Gnome Gemulets will star the show's protagonists, twins Dipper and Mabel, as they investigate mysteries in the remote wilderness of Gravity Falls, Oregon. Show creator Alex Hirsch is heavily involved in the game's development where he designed the key art.

Well, technically Peanuts is getting a movie adaptation, and that's what's getting the video game spin-off, but you get the idea.

Dubbed The Peanuts Movie: Snoopy's Grand Adventure, it will be an oldschool platformer by Behaviour Interactive, the developer of Naughty Bear and its sequel, Panic in Paradise. Behaviour has also collaborated on numerous other titles such as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.

This feature-length film is being produced by Legendary Digital Media and Contradiction Films, the companies who previously adapted Mighty No. 9 and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune's Dead Rising series into the live-action flick Dead Rising: Watchtower. Inafune's company Comcept will also be involved.

Though panned by critics, such as our Dan Whitehead, Dead Rising: Watchtower was still a commercial success on Sony's online streaming service Crackle. As such, Crackle has already greenlit a sequel from Legendary Digital and Contradiction.

Comic horror roguelike The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is coming to Xbox One and the North American Wii U and 3DS eShops on 23rd July, publisher Nicalis, Inc. has announced.

"We are in final submission for both games with Nintendo of Europe," the publisher said on Twitter of its European release on Nintendo platforms. "We'll release as soon as we receive final approval from Nintendo of EU."

Zero Escape 3, the sequel to 999 and Virtue's Last Reward, has been officially announced for 3DS and Vita, due summer 2016.

This latest installment in Chunsoft's visual novel horror franchise was announced by series director Kotaro Uchikoshi at publisher Aksys Games' Panel of Absolute Bedlam at Anime Expo 2015 in Los Angeles.

There was even a teaser trailer for it shown off at the 30.32 mark in the following video:

Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate's free DLC for the month of July has been revealed on the Capcom Unity Blog.

Like always, this includes 14 new quests and five new weapons, one of which is a hammer actually made out of ham. Oh god, is that what Poogie is being prepped for? Poogie!

But the big standout this time is the Star Knight Armour, a highly coveted armour set that was originally only available to those who visited Universal Studios Japan. Often considered overpowered, the rare Star Knight Armour has some pretty sweet stats.

"Wouldn't it be nice if I could just say that I'm done and retire?" Keiji Inafune, implausibly 50, lounges on a bench, back against the wall, legs outstretched, crossed at the ankles, arms folded. The translator laughs to mask the sense of unease in the room. But it's not unexpected. Inafune, whose career in Japanese game development began in the late 1980s when he joined Capcom as an illustrator (he helped design the original Street Fighter's iconic characters, Ken and Ryu) has a reputation for bolshiness. After designing Mega Man, a game series that sold tens of millions of copies, Inafune rose Capcom's ranks to become global head of production. It could have been a job for life, but in 2010 Inafune announced on his blog that he was leaving to "start...life over." Freedom of employment (he started his own company, Comcept) seemingly brought with it freedom of speech: during a talk at the 2012 Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, Inafune accused the Japanese video game industry as being in a "tragic state." The verdict made him few friends.

Today, in a plush-carpeted meeting room that smells of old coffee and new plastic, hidden inside Microsoft's stand at the E3 conference in Los Angeles, Inafune's un-Japanese outspokenness has not dulled. "The truth is this," he says. "Had I been born in America, and had I sold 30 million copies of my game Mega Man, I'd be retired by now. But that's not how it works in Japan, is it? Even if I'd have come up with Minecraft I would never have become Notch. That's just how our society works."

Is Inafune's seemingly anti-Japanese rhetoric rooted in resentment? No, he says. "I say these things, not in a spirit of bitterness, but as a positive. It's what has kept me going in this industry. The system is set-up in such a way that I've not been able to retire off a single major success. So, it's a different path we're taken down, just by virtue of being Japanese. It's a good thing. It's allowed me to continue to make video games."

Metroid Prime series boss Kensuke Tanabe has explained the decision to focus the upcoming 3DS spin-off Federation Force on characters other than series star Samus Aran.

Tanabe told Eurogamer that he wanted to create a game focused on a co-operative experience - and that having each player control a version of Samus wouldn't make sense.

"[Metroid Prime: Federation Force] is an attempt to expand the Metroid universe," Tanabe told Eurogamer during an interview conducted at E3. "As you can play with up to four players it wouldn't make sense to play as four Samus characters!

Retro platformer Shovel Knight is getting a retail release this October on 3DS, Wii U, PS4, Xbox One and PC. The PC version is Europe only.

North Americans will receive it on 13th October, while the UK and Europe will have to wait until 16th October due to the whole Tuesday/Friday thing that dictates retail releases.

Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club Games noted its debut effort sold a staggering 700,000 copies. That's over four times Yacht Club's original lifetime estimate of shifting 150K units. Not bad for a small team that raised $311,502 for the game on Kickstarter, even if that team was mostly comprised of former WayForward (Mighty Switch Force, BloodRayne: Betrayal) staff.

This year The Real returns, and it looks more glamourously grizzly than ever (Thanks, Kotaku). It's hard to tell based on the trailers how much tech is used in this production, but it appears that attendees have a limited amount of digital ammo in their prop guns and their visors add some element of augmented reality to the already decorative environments.

Three-player dungeon-crawler The legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes now has 15 minutes of gameplay footage taken from E3 via Polygon.

We get to see some of the nifty designs Nintendo has crafted around the three-player totem mechanic wherein players can pile atop one another. This seems like it's used a ton in both combat and puzzles as bosses require folks to work together as a team.

Triforce Heroes has also got a cool Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light thing going wherein each player has different items. Some will have a bow, while others are equipped with bombs, for example, giving the game a somewhat asymmetrical quality to it.

Zelda: Triforce Heroes' main story mode won't support two-player play.

According to a report by Kotaku, the game's main campaign can be played either as a trio or solo - in which case the player switches between the roles of three characters while the unpossessed ones stand still, ala The Lost Vikings.

“You can't play regular courses with two people,” said game director Hiromasa Shikata in an interview with Kotaku. "If someone drops out or quits, you'll get to a game over screen." Apparently if someone needs to jet, the game will save your progress and there will be an option to swap in a replacement player or transition to solo.

Nintendo's E3 was always going to be a strange one, yet what unfurled in its Digital Event was as bizarre a piece of corporate theatre as its infamous 2008 conference, where the company danced to the grating tune of Wii Music and its over-energetic re-reveal. Back then, Nintendo fell out with its fans for forgetting the hardcore, but this year - when it's playing to no-one but those faithful few - the fall-out came for entirely different reasons.

The strangeness cut both ways, though. In the puppet parade that kicked off the event there was a colourful reminder that there's still no-one quite like Nintendo, its bounding, self-referential glee the perfect antidote to the more staid shows put on by Sony and Microsoft. This was Nintendo doing things its own way - and with third party support seemingly limited to Activision's Skylanders and Ubisoft's Just Dance, it's the only way it can do things - but it was worth remembering that while the other platform holders leant on the might of other publishers, nearly everything in Nintendo's show was the work of its own hand.

Then there's the fact that PlayStation and Xbox can sell themselves on the promise of what's to come in 2016, while for Nintendo that still remains off the menu. Those caveats aside, though, this was still a weak show - Reggie Fils-Aimé set expectations as well as he could, acknowledging that next year was when we'd hear about the theme parks, the mobile games and, yes, the NX, but even with the bar set low there was a sense that Nintendo limboed well under it, with Iwata moved to make an apology of sorts in the immediate, fiery aftermath on the company's official Twitter account.

E3 is almost upon us once again, and now that the current-gen launch cobwebs have been blown away it's time to charge up the hype machine we all know and love. Microsoft and Sony will be offering up the more traditional E3 fare in the form of live presentations, while Nintendo once again opts for a more measured - yet no less tantalising - direct stream for its fans. There'll also be plenty of news coming out of the third party publisher events too.

In this guide, you'll find details of when each and every major E3 conference and broadcast starts this year. We've also included some recommended background reading if you want to get yourself up to speed for each of the big events. Before each conference, we'll also add a link to our live stream pages where you'll be able to watch the show along with us, and join in with our announcement reaction chit-chat.

When each of the presentations has ended, we'll strip out those recommended background reading bits and replace them with the biggest news that came out of each show. This should make it easier for you to catch up on all of the most significant announcements in one place, should it turn out that staying up until 4am isn't all that appealing after all.

The next Zelda title has been announced as the 3DS exclusive Zelda Triforce Heroes, due this autumn.

While its 3D graphics and top-down view recall that of A Link Between Worlds, Triforce Heroes is a multiplayer-focused adventure with support for up to three players.

Helmed by A Link Between Worlds director, Hiromasa Shikata, Triforce Heroes will be centered around dungeons in which players can stack on top of one another like totems to solve puzzles and tackle bosses.

UPDATE: The Super Smash Bros. Nintendo Direct has now aired, and with it comes official confirmation of the Ryu and Roy character leaks detailed below.

The video also confirmed the return of Kirby's Dreamland and Zelda's Hyrule Castle N64 stages, along with the long-promised Miiverse stage.

What was surprising, however, was the immediate release of much of this content. Ryu, Roy and the previously announced Lucas are available to purchase now, alongside the Dreamland stage. The Miiverse stage is also available to download for free.

Nintendo won E3 hands-down last year, even if its victory counted for squat: for all the success of its Direct approach, and for all the strange new pleasures to be found in its line-up, there wasn't much by way knock-on effect on for the fortunes of the Wii U. It didn't really matter back then, and it doesn't matter much now, either: last year wasn't about saving the Wii U, but about introducing a new, revitalised Nintendo, one that had decided to take its critics head-on, to tackle the circus of E3 on its own terms, and one that came out on top even though its home console can't hold a candle to its competitors sales-wise. That one of Nintendo's finest games in a generation came in its wake - an all-new IP by a new generation of talent within the company, no less - was just gravy.

It's that punchy. fighty Nintendo that pulls into E3 next week, though it finds its hand slightly tied. The shadow of the NX - ominous yet still totally undefined - looms over the company, even if we know it's not due an E3 appearance until next year's show. A strange state of affairs, albeit one Nintendo's found itself in before. Unlike when the Revolution was waiting in the wings, it's doubtful we'll find out exactly how many DVD cases the NX's final form is akin to. If, as many believe, the NX pertains to Nintendo's home and handheld hardware futures, then both the 3DS and Wii U are in something of a bind.

Even Eiji Aonuma's Zelda is confirmed to be off the menu, so what exactly can Nintendo talk about? Miyamoto's StarFox, which began as a small experiment shown to a select few last year and now appears to have been spun out to a full game, will likely lead the way, and it's indicative of where Nintendo finds itself with the Wii U right now. Bringing back a seasoned favourite in what's potentially a low overhead outing (even if Nintendo never skimps when it comes to production values) suggests the company's formed a defensive huddle around the fans, weathering the storm before whatever's coming next. It's in that spirit that we may well see a new Metroid - always a fan favourite, but never a series that's had a broader appeal - even if it's not quite the Retro-helmed Prime sequel many are hoping for.

The actor died on Sunday at a London hospital after being treated for respiratory problems and heart failure, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Lee made his name with 1950s Hammer horror films, but he also famously played Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man (1973) and Scaramanga in James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). More recently, Lee found a new audience after playing Saruman in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films, and Count Dooku in the last two Star Wars films.

Nintendo fans have spotted a well-hidden hint that a female version of Link may appear in the upcoming 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors.

The hack-and-slash spin-off's original Wii U edition already features a vast range of characters from the Legend of Zelda series, but an all-new female Link - named Linkle - was previously considered for the game.

Concept artwork for her was published in Hyrule Warrior's official art book, and shows her holding a red/silver bow.